i fully understand the circumstances and except your point, however the point I am trying to make is that if the Ukrainian flight was one of a line of aircraft at regular intervals taking off from an international airport on a well defined departure route then why was it singled out? Surely the weapons controller would have noted the regular flow of aircraft departing from this airport especially if any aircraft had already taken off ahead of this flight.

There were 9 scheduled jet departures 0400-0459, 3 0500-0559 (including the Ukrainian) and 4 0600-0659. It seems operating an hour or more late is also pretty standard there.

I will hazard a guess that Baghdad Bob got a new job. (yes, that is a joke ... he was an Iraqi)
Unless it doesn't fall apart in a milisecond.
If there are pilots on board and some control authority is present, that's how.
For a fellow who is the minister for the CAO, he seems to know very little about flying.
Ended on a positive note

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51055219

Here's quote from Prime Minister Trudeau as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

I concur with geolocation.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7ae0e2edeb.jpg

Google Map Link

https://goo.gl/maps/zgxMVMUfAcuxyHDD6

Video at following post

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/...l#post10658174

I thought that the Red Crescent and other rescue personnel appeared to be quite professional in their recovery of the human remains.

The scene looked to me much more organized than some other crash sites overseas, e.g.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....703a491bc6.jpg

One irony to a Westerner is that some of the photos posted by the ISNA (Iranian Students' News Agency) showed body parts without censorship but wedding photos of a bride not in a hijab were bowdlerized.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....df9e24ee1c.jpg

Traffic in and around Tehran during the time in question according to Flightradar:
https://www.flightradar24.com/2020-0.../35.56,51.64/9

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f3fa35b33f.jpg
This is a still from the first frame showing the rapidly growing light source, which is consistent with an explosion. It appears to be partly shielded, suggesting it may be exploding under and in front of the port wing (the aircraft would be moving from right to left at the moment of impact) perhaps?

New York Times has up to date “confirmation”of missile attack.
Always seemed only reasonable conclusion.
At least it’s not more bad news for Boeing which could have been terminal if the plane had simply exploded due to massive unprecedented explosion
very sad indeed for all concerned whatever the cause
RG

Unlikely, normally different SAM designs for high level vs. low level targets, and the picture, if kosher, is of a low level system.


Which is probably why the Iranians responded rather too quickly with 'technical malfunction' as the cause. Bet they couldn't believe their luck when it turned out to be a 737.

In spite of the literary gymnastics by some posters that attempt to explain away the obvious, it's becoming quite clear the aircraft was shot down by an AA missile.

​​​​​​​The videos, photos of penetration damage, and most significantly the missile seeker head, reflect the fact that the totalitarian Iranian regime cannot prevent the ubiquitous smartphone from revealing that what had been suspected has indeed occurred.

New clip more extended from a total new angle and duration
Or
w w w.instagram.com/p/B7HdTwcFJgg/?igshid=1olk482vnapv
Close the Ws

Mrs Doubtfire: From what I could make out just looking at FR24 is that there were no departures for about 45 minutes prior to the AUI departure. Is that correct?

I don't put much weight on the meaning of the heading reversal. ALL of the following LOCA accidents involved a heading reversal or close approximation. None of them were "trying to return to the airport" - they were simply ~halfway through an out-of-control spiral at the moment of impact.

AF447
Colgan Air 3407
AirAsia 8501

I believe this aircraft simply just "rolled in" once the aerodynamics and/or the control systems and/or the crew were compromised by the missile strike.

The reports of refusal to share the recorders outside the country were later called as due to poor translation.

A more recent report has

"... the black box of this very Ukrainian Boeing 737 is damaged. Ukrainian Aviation experts arrived here in Tehran today. We had a session with them. From tomorrow they will start decoding the data."

"If the available equipment is not enough to get the content Iran will outsource the boxes to the experts from France or Canada," Abedzadeh said.

Of direct concern to what you say there is will the investigation be carried out and openly published by the relevant authorities, including those coming from abroad, or will things be hampered by the state.

A spokesman for the Iranian regime has been quoted denouncing speculation about missiles as a form of psychological warfare. Not necessarily promising for the clarity of the ultimate result.

Thanks for the info. I believe the situation still leaves room for the aircraft to look potentially suspicious in the prevailing circumstances (not that this in any way excuses the actions of the operators).

MrsDoubtfire - your link didn't work for me, although that may be because of how my browser is configured.

A shoot down was the only viable conclusion I came to. I consider catastrophic failure of a wing tank and thus the loss of the aircraft, due to a UERF or FBO event to be even less likely than a SAM shootdown in the environment the aircraft was being operated in.

Debris trajectories are considered as part of the airworthiness requirements of the aircraft (as TDRacer mentions up thread - there is a requirement for +/- 5 degrees coverage forward and aft of a defined zone). On some aircraft designs, where it is not possible to avoid intersecting the wing with high energy damage, purposely dry volumes are designed in to try to stop fuel venting over parts of the engine hot enough to ignite the fuel. QF32 showed that a turbine could fail and penetrate the wing, and ignite fuel, but that a fire was likely to put itself out, either due to impinging air on the outside blowing the fire out, sheer liquid fuel quantity extinguishing the fire or due to a lack of air on the inside of the tank - fire uses up the bay free air. QF32 also shows that you can almost completely sever the front spar and maintain adequate structural integrity for normal flight and landing. This is not a design case!

I know that the insurance for my planes specify exclusions for damage resulting from an "act of war". Would being downed by a missile be considered an act of war? I recall that the US [eventually] paid out the Iran airline when they shot their airliner down many years ago. I don't recall what was the outcome of the MH17 shoot down. Would an airline be able to collect on their liability and aircraft hull insurance when it was determined to have been shot down?

Interesting. Not sure if that may just be a lighting artifact between video frames. However, if it is a shadow cast on initial detonation it would not be on the port (left) side since that is in line of sight with the camera and therefore 'under the wing' would be visible, not hidden. The missile appears to approach the aircraft from off centre and to the right. You get a sense for this when you compare the missile track against the post impact aircraft track. So it is more likely the missile approached and detonated on the starboard (right hand) side of the aircraft in which case the initiation of the warhead may have been partly shielded by the fuselage which seems more likely in this case. Not trying to 'make this fit', but this would also support right hand side fragmentation damage alluded to earlier especially the hole punched through the vertical stabilizer from right to left and the (probable) right hand aft engine cowl / tail-cone assembly.
All very sad.

This seems relatively conclusive "New Video shows 'missile' hit Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 before it crashed killing 176

Daily Mail Story

Video of missile and explosion

I did my own geolocation of the video and found the same (didn't refresh for a while so I didn't see comments - good to have independent confirmation). Video was shot from here: 35.489223, 50.906857, and the explosion happened in North-West to North-North-Westerly direction.

According to my estimates, the sound of the explosion arrives 10.8 seconds after the flash, which means the video was shot from around 3.7 km away from the explosion. Last known altitude from flightradar24 is 7925 feet. Ground altitude is around 1.1 km. So with some trigonometry, we find that the ground distance from the point where the video was taken is around 3.5 km. With the location of the person taking the video and the line of sight, the explosion happens roughly in this area: 35.5161, 50.9287

However, it appears, the aircraft travelled around 17 seconds between the last ADS-B transmission and the time of being hit by the missile based on the intersection of the presumed flight path and the line of sight from the video. Altitude would then have been approximately 800 feet higher, so ground distance from person taking video would only have been 3.3 km, putting the revised location of the explosion in this area: 35.5140, 50.9263. The angular altitude of the explosion as seen from the position of where the video was taken would then be around 25°, which seems to be consistent with the video (but someone should check this in detail).

Working assumption for the reason of the missing 17 seconds would be that there were two missiles launched (as suggested by the intelligence from the US). The first missile was launched at took out ADS-B and radio at least. The explosion is heard and the person turns on the video camera just in time to catch the second missile hit the plane.

For what it's worth here's my take on this.
I do think there may have been an initial technical fault which may or may not have been communicated to ATC which caused the aircraft to turn back towards the airport. From what I see the remains were taking a distinctly SE track. This may well be the root of the first claims that a "technical issue" had downed the aircraft. From what I can gather in the various translated statements is that the aircraft did not declare an emergency, but that does not rule out a non-urgency communication of a minor problem. Apparently this aircraft had already left tower frequency and was either in the process of changing enroute or had already done so, so any comms would unlikely to have been with local at this point.

Having worked airfields with air defences in climbout and approach lanes I can assure you that there will be comms between tower and those sites, maybe not so between the enroute sector and the missile battery. Maybe we have a situation where pilot knows he is turning back, sector knows he is turning back but tower and missile site are still unaware.

Add to this the heightened state of the defences, the steady stream of NW'ly outbounds and suddenly an aircraft appears (reappears) heading towards the airfield. It's not expected, no communication from anyone as to what it might be and a conclusion jumped to by the battery crew before anyone can get the message to the right people in time.
Whatever the cause, this remains a tragedy and thoughts go out to all involved and affected.

PS. We all know the Aviate, Navigate, Communicate mantra oft repeated on here. In the current clmate, especially in missile protected regions maybe that last point starts to take on a higher priority.
Stay safe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/w...h-ukraine.html

• Jan. 9, 2020 Updated 8:56 p.m. ET

NTSB media release tonight.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....17bde552e1.jpg

Opposition advocacy journalist Malachy Browne gives this analysis of the video locales.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....914d9e0fdc.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....903f38cca9.jpg

The satellites do a better job of that, as reported. "Drones" usually operate at higher altitudes.

Quote:

---

Strange that it took so long for the videos to emerge.

---

The phone footage was on line within only about six hours of the accident. You think that a long time?

The maps on the Aviation Herald depict the following sequence:

- Aircraft departs airport heading northwest and paralleling the Karaj River.
- Missile strike video recorded with camera pointing northeast from near the Karaj River (town of Parand) as aircraft passes right to left - still tracking NW.
- no radio transmissions or XPDR received after approximately that point
- then the track turns right to SE to point of ground impact.

Is there evidence contradicting that sequence?

I've seen no evidence whatsover that the aircraft was hit by a missile while travelling "back to the airport" - and video that implies it was hit while travelling NW enroute Kyiv. But I have an open mind if there is additional evidence.

Crash: UIA B738 at Tehran on Jan 8th 2020, lost height after departure, aircraft on fire after missile hit

Some local people in Teheran suggested that, missile is originated from here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/35...3!4d50.9051985

They said it is some sort of air defence military object. Missile specifications allow easily to intercept that plane at 2400m altitude from the site.

Correct. From the FlightRadar24 blog, it looks like PS752 was on a normal path for western departures:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e43a45e5f6.jpg

27 flights went in and out of the Tehran airport...WITH TRANSPONDERS working. Something happened to this airplane, that cut all of it's communications, including transponder. The plane was headed practically right at Prada's air defense site, not squawking, not talking, in the dark, toward soldiers on high alert, anticipating an attack.

Naturally, they shot it down.

I think the key question then is, what caused the transponder and radios to cease working, at the end of the radar plot?

But the transponder WAS working. As evidenced by flightradar24 having the flight path.

The video showing the alleged rocket impact on the plane was geolocated, it was made very close to the point of the last transponder transmission. So the failure of the transponder is the consequence of the plane being shot down, not its cause.

That is one of a couple of interesting installations, however the TOR is a mobile platform and would have been dispersed if there was an expectation of an attack. Movement of launchers would have bben part of the contingency if the attack into Iraq was planned with a modicum of depth.

The missile in the latest video taken from South of the track shows the plume of the SRM of the 9M331. That precludes the flight distance from the prepared sites that have been suggested. The max engagement range of an target is beyond the motor life, the burn time is a known value, and is less than that needed at the velocity of the missile. Anything over 5Km, there would be no SRM burn plume visible at detonation.

The video of the detonation at altitude is more than likely the second missile fired for various reasons.

The war head on these missiles will devastate the aircrafts systems but is not likely to completely destruct the aircraft of that size. It damages from fragmentation dispersed radially around the center of the weapon body. With CLOS it is not often going to actually hit a target, but a transport category aircraft is a simple target. Even IR missiles miss on many occasions.. (recall Arkia)

The 9m331 warhead is frag, don't believe it is a continuous rod though.

Amazing statements made here based on Twitter, insagram videos of bad quality, conspiratorial or Iranian opposition web sites, but OK Trudeau and Trump said they had intelligence proving it , so let's wait until if they share it .The photo posted by Airbubba in post 317 indeed refresh some memories for those old enough to remember this guy , you could add Colin Powell to that.
I smell another big rat .. but maybe it is just my suspicion nature.
As said it again , the aircraft was on the SID under the control of Merhabad ACC. and was cleared to FL260 , so mis-identification is very unlikely and as it is a joint Aciv/mil ATC facility the ,military would have had the details . The attitude of the Iranian CAA does not lend towards a cover up ,, For the rest... a unsupervised a trigger happy revolutionary guard ? maybe, anything is possible..

What do you mean ?

That piece of equipment is not a bulldozer, it is a loader, and will likely be being used to lift heavy pieces of aircraft for recovery. In that picture there is no evidence of the site being bulldozed. There is a significant amount of imagery coming from the site and there is no imagery of the site being bulldozed.

In fact the article reads: "Iran has used bulldozers to move around pieces of debris from a crashed Ukrainian passenger jet, potentially destroying evidence which could help determine exactly what happened to it. Images and reports from the crash site, just outside Tehran, show at least one bulldozer working in the debris at the site"

The article doesn't say they are bulldozing the site, and the article wrongly refers to a picture of "at least one" loader as a bulldozer (in typical journalistic hyperbole).

To be honest I don't even think the site needs to be preserved, there is already enough evidence including video and reported radar tracking of missile attacks. And the Iran government has nothing to gain by shooting down a Ukrainian plane filled with Iranian passport holders so it was obviously an accident or rogue activity. Iran still wants to function as country and closing down air travel does not do it any benefit whatsover.

Seems they misidentified the launch area though? I believe the missile need to have come from the sand-bag-like base (as was pointed out very early) in the _right_ of the image, not to the left as daily mail drew. Its from opposite side of the flight path compared to the video so the missile can not have come from the left there, too.

Still Frame taken from the video posted under discussion - with bellingcat and clever chaps here doing the geo-locating above.
Frame is 0.8 seconds after explosion.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a7886b1a73.png

Not good news; unless all pieces have been tagged, carefully collected and removed to a hangar somewhere for reconstruction.

Has there been any expert analysis of the sound which follows the visual flash after a corresponding delay due to distance?

To my ears it is the sudden sharp sound of an explosive, rather than any noise due to e.g. an engine failure. And an internal explosive would likely be much smaller and not anywhere near so loud. This seems to be further evidence of a missile.

There appear to be some very naive comments on this thread and an assumption that in Iran there exists a fully integrated and coordinated civil military system. History tells us that even more mature and capable States around the world get it wrong.

In 1998 the USS Vincennes, a state of art guided missile cruiser with highly trained warfare specialists, shoots down an Iranian Airbus flying south out of Bandar Abbas, with the correct squawk, following an airway and in contact with ATC. 290 deaths

The shooting down of a UK GR4 by a US Patriot Missile in 2003 (Gulf War II). Edited thanks

The shooting down of MH17 over Ukraine by Separatists or others unknown - 298 deaths

Aeroflot 902 in 1962 with 80+ deaths during an air defence exercise

Siberian 1812 in 2001 during a Ukrain military exercise 78 dead

There are lots of examples of deliberate and accidental shootdowns across the decades. Some of the accidental ones will be down to poor procedures, not following safety routines, incompetence, fear, disregard for safety, ignorance, lack of identification equipment, lack of training or a whole combination of everything. Even a highly technical system can get it wrong and present to someone on high alert, a hostile target that is in fact a civilian aircraft with innocent souls onboard. I echo the comments of a previous poster in regardless of how much more fuel it will cost, shut such airspace down and do not allow aircraft to fly across conflict areas.

May they all rest in peace,